InstaShop (Arabic: انستاشوب) is an E-commerce technology company founded in the United Arab Emirates in 2015 currently operating in 9 countries. On August 27, 2020, Delivery Hero announced that acquired 100% of InstaShop for $360 million.
History
InstaShop was founded in 2015 in Dubai, by John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki as an online grocery delivery service. Twelve months later, the company was nominated by Forbes Middle East as one of "The most promising UAE startups" of the year, having partnered with more than 50 supermarkets and having more than 60,000 users, reason why Souq.com (now Amazon) quickly decided to invest on the project.
In the following years the company expanded outside the UAE, starting its operations in Qatar and Bahrain in 2017, to then enter in Egypt and Lebanon in 2018. Also in 2018, Forbes Middle East awarded InstaShop as one of the top 100 startups.
In 2019 InstaShop has gone from being a Grocery Delivery App to delivering multiple types of products, reaching more than 500,000 users during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On August 2020 InstaShop was acquired by the German holding Delivery Hero based on a valuation of USD 360 million.
After the expansions in Oman, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia occurred in 2021, the app - which is currently active in 9 countries - has also gradually expanded its offer (originally focused on grocery), adding other categories such as pharmacies, restaurants, fitness nutrition, electronics, perfumes, stationery, home & living, and cosmetics.